The Wounded Healer

“We read to know we are not alone.” – C.S. Lewis

We are not alone. The night nurse is standing in the doorway. Benjie is a kind, black man from the Caribbean, who listens patiently, oh so patiently.  Ralph moans in real pain, but the moan is also for effect. It gets worse at night. 

“Can I have a piece of pizza or some cake,” Ralph asks.

“Nuh-na. Yuh are on duh sof’ diet,” Benjie tells him.

“Please, please. I’m starving. Maybe a piece of toast and some chocolate pudding?”

“Mi could fetch yuh some pud'n, but no solid food.”

“Two chocolate puddings. And a ginger ale. And some of those white chocolate macadamia nut cookies.”

“Nuh cookies.”

“But I’m starving in here. Just get me as much pudding as you can.”

“Mi gwine also link up Dr. Rafi E. Hand from Hepatology to come check on yuh inna di mawnin' when him duh him rounds. Dr. Hand be a real legend. Him ago get yuh ready fi yuh procedure.”

I grunt in pain. A surge of lightning runs down my left leg. The blown disc in my back screams with pulsing bursts of electric that run from head to toe. My blood pressure beats in my neck. I can hear the pulsing of my heart and feel it in my temples. I lay supine and I am completely trapped in my own body.

“Yuh need more morphine?”

“Uhhhhh,” I say. Benjie shoots the morphine into my IV. I can taste the acid metal on my tongue. I can feel the warmth running through my veins, feel my ears and nose clear, and feel my head floating in a lightness like a bed of feathers. Woosh. It hits like a wave that covers over the pain. My eyes blur and lose focus, then regain focus on the dust mites in the beams of light from my bed lamp. Benjie slips off while the two of us luxuriate in chemical tranquility.

“Hooah!” Ralph says, as he finishes his third pudding. “It’s funny. Back when I was a marine, I didn’t drink. The boys would crush beers and polish off bottles like it was nothing. But it wasn’t for me. Never took a sip.”

“How long were you enlisted for?”

“I was the strange one in my squad. I enjoyed being a marine mechanic and I woke up every day ready to do my job.”

“Did you get pancreatitis in the service?”

“My f**king wife left me. I f**ked up. It wasn’t because of anything. I just got depressed. These thoughts were just in my head. And I started drinking. Who starts drinking at fifty-years-old? Three years brother, three years. That’s all it took.”

“You destroyed your pancreas in three years?”

“I went hard brother. Every day. It was like that movie Leaving Las Vegas. I just didn’t stop, and nobody came and stopped me.”

“You really worked hard at it, huh?”

“Uggg. Ughhh. I’m gonna be sick. I can feel it. Ughhh. All I want is some food. I’m wasting away. I used to be a specimen. Now I’m 135 pounds.” Ralph makes his way into the bathroom to give back the pudding, but I still can’t move. Benji comes in to give me more morphine and I lay back and drift off, listening to Ralph groaning and moaning in agony. He has Seinfeld playing on the hospital television and George’s high-pitched ranting gives me a short respite from the lightning running down my leg and from Ralph’s groaning.

I had gotten used to this. Ralph had a few modes. One mode was “groaning and moaning.” When his pancreas factory started trying to produce enzymes, and puttered like a stalled engine, it put him into “groaning and moaning.” Another mode was “nostalgic marine.” This was where Ralph would talk about his time in the service, exploits with women, or anything else he happened to be proud of… and would talk at length… not terribly concerned if I even acknowledged I was listening. I guess when you have a captive audience, you just go with it. The last mode was “fretting and regretting.” Ralph would start going on tinder trying to line up a date, as if he was getting discharged and wasn’t on a one-way trip to hospice. Then he would talk about his three-year drinking binge and his ex-wife who caused all of his problems. 

* * *

We are not alone. The morning news says an airborne killer has invaded the world. As prevalent as dew on early morning grasses, this ubiquitous germ has already spread through Europe. It is a lymphatic disease like nothing seen since the Black Death. The pandemic has probably spread worldwide before being recognized, but we won’t know for a few days. People are already dying. New quarantines are in effect. 

The new disease, being called “The Black Veil” or “The Veil” attacks the lymphatic glands and the internal tissues that clear waste then become necrotic, causing limbs choked of oxygen to turn black. The black stain, like a creeping shadow, proceeds up the arms and legs to the torso and at last covers the heart and takes one’s life.

Dr. Rafi E. Hand walks in with a limp left leg and a handheld cane with an ornate gold Fritz handle with Grecian symbols of warriors engraved on it. His blue-gray eyes shine out from circular rimmed glasses like two aquamarine crystals. He has dark weathered skin and a broad nose. The nose seems pulled toward his ears by deep laugh lines that hold back plump and ruddy cheeks. His equine jaw is shaded by a close-trimmed beard, and he has a long mane of jet-black hair tied at his neck, which is splashed with gray. He gives off a musty smell like ripe hay in the spring, a sweet coumarin odor. He has a major’s insignia and a blue mini medal of honor on his white coat.

Ralph salutes the major, and Dr. Hand rests his cane on the bed and salutes back.

“Hungry Ralph?”

“Always Doctor.”

“We are going to try to get you on some solid food. You have to do as I say, now. No cheese, dairy, or any animal products. Only crackers. Nothing else.”

“But all they have here at night is pudding doc.”

“You can’t have the pudding. It has fat in it. It will make you sick.”

“Will I be able to get the Whipple procedure?”

“First we have to get you well enough to survive the treatment, my friend.”

Dr. Hand places his right hand on Ralph’s shoulder and looks at him for a long time, then turns and grabs his cane and is off to his next patient.

* * *

Dr. Hand remembers being stationed in the Afghan Marine forward operating base outside of Marjah, bordered by wild poppy fields as far as the eye could see. The fields smelled of vanilla and almond. 

Major Hand, as he was known then, marveled at the proliferation of poppy by blood-drenched battlefields. He knew that it was because artillery shells churn the soil. This awakens the dormant poppy seeds. The seeds of the red flowers can lie dormant for a hundred years. During the battle they are finally exposed to the surface from the disruption of the penetrating slugs cracking their cocoons, showing them to the surface just long enough to be touched by a single ray of sunshine. As if by magic, they immediately wake from hibernation and bloom. The red blossoms are strange grave dressings that give veneration to the fallen dead. Our cure to the sufferings of the battlefield is borne from the graves of dead soldiers.

Marjah is the tip of the spear, and from there they would extend control to Kandahar, the birthplace of the Taliban. It seemed mad that they were paying former Taliban soldiers between $90 and $160 a month to police the Now Zad district and the Bazaar. One of the ALP police, Raz Gul, who was supposed to be cracking down on the opium trade, turned out to be the chief drug trafficker! Perhaps it was the fault of the Marines that the opium trade was in full swing, after all. All those artillery shells, all those rightful dead, the minerals of their very bodies sprouting up as sweet chemical Novocain that paralyzes the senses. 

Major Hand had showed Raz Gul how to use white phosphorous artillery shells called Wille Pete to disrupt and burn through enemy encampments. Every time the Major saw a waft of smoke in the clear desert night, he wondered if the weapons he had helped the enemy to make were responsible for those smoldering fires in the homes of villagers and in their military outposts.

Major Hand was wearing a green T-shirt and camo pants, with tan boots. He surveyed the company with eyes covered by dark black sunglasses. There were playing cards on the green table from a half-finished game of Texas Hold ‘Em, and a pot of playing chips and cigarettes, which the boys used when they ran out of chips. The boys were passing a bottle of Wild Turkey whiskey back and forth, smoking Marlboro Reds and laughing in the windless desert night. It was difficult to swallow the red-eye in the dry heat with the dust from passing transport vehicles coming in and out of camp.

They had been bold enough to leave the COP and show face in the Now Zad Bazaar where the enemy had a stronghold. Shops and vendors were coming back to the ghostly dirt main drag—which had been abandoned like a town stricken by a plague. Taliban forces had scared away all the customers and made peaceful commerce impossible. But the semblance of a society was reemerging from the dust as if it had never fled but had only been sleeping. 

The boys had come back with fresh eggplants, tomatoes, goat eggs and bread and had made a stop at the jingle trucks for oil and supplies. That night, they ate bruschetta, roasted eggplant with tomato sauce, and goat egg omelets. And drank their livers.

A crack like a felled tree rang through the night. THUD. A shell had crashed through the hood of the tent and lay on the card table. The men all stared, stunned at the projectile, still intact, but shaking and about to explode. 

“Down!” the Major shouted. And as he jumped to the floor, he heard the whiff of the smoke and the ignition of the accelerant. BOOAMM. He felt a searing sleeve of fire inside his quad light up and he batted his writhing leg with a barracks blanket, but even after the flame subsided, he felt like his leg was on fire from the inside, being eaten by phosphorous posion and he looked into the gaping wound, which seemed endless, as he bit down hard to quell the relentless surges of pain.

It smelled like garlic. The acrid smoke made him cough and choke. Through the smoke the Major saw the outline of the tent engulfed in flame and saw bodies strewn on the deck. Crawling on his forearms, he struggled to find the entrance of the tent and escape the fire, but the fire was burning in his thigh and gnawing at his very bones.

The Major looked back and realized that two of his men were still alive, and he was going to have to get them out as well. Standing to his feet, he grabbed a rifle to use to steady himself and grabbed Lieutenant Corporal Sayjack by his collar and began dragging him out of the tent.

* * *

We are not alone. The hospital is buzzing with life in the early morning hours. Runners from the hospital kitchen are up delivering meals, nurses are checking on patients and delivering meds, and there are people coming and going from the staff change.

Dr. Hand arrives and places his cane on the TV stand, stretching his arms over his head and grimacing as he takes a few tentative steps over to the foot of Ralph’s bed. They are obscured by the blue hospital curtain which has been drawn between Ralph and I the whole time we’ve been here.

“I’ve gotten the approvals to have you transferred. You’ll be going to Mt. Sinai, and they’ve got you booked to do the procedure next week.”

“We both know this is a one-way trip doc,” Ralph says.

“I don’t know soldier.”

“Oh, I know. There’s no coming back from this.”

“What are you afraid of? You know what it’s like to live on death’s door. How to go on when you can be snatched up any moment. This time there are no IEDs or mortar shells or enemies lying in wait to snatch your life with a cowardly attack—you know what you are facing this time.”

“Ahh, Doc. I did this to myself. I can feel it in my bones. My body is getting ready to die. Don’t tell me you don’t know. You’ve seen it a hundred times.”

“I’ve seen many things. What I’ve learned is that the wounded have to heal themselves—which first means believing they can. You can’t expect the body to heal if you keep telling it it’s dying.”

“If I could heal myself, I wouldn’t be here Doc.”

Dr. Hand turns to me, “You’ve got to get on your feet son. You won’t be running marathons any time soon, but why don’t you go take a couple of laps.”

“Sure thing, Doc.”

I get up, not knowing after what seven, eight days on my back, what day it even is. I begin walking and find that after the morphine and the oxycodone, I can manage to walk almost normally. I still have on my Garmin Fenix 6X running watch, which is a little dirty underneath as I haven’t had a proper shower in a week. And I look down tracking my steps, first fifty, then I make it eighty. After about two-hundred steps at a slow pace, I start picking it up to about an eighteen-minute mile. Then pick up the pace some more and pretty soon, I’m damn near close to four miles an hour. There is no pain—only attention on the damaged bone. I can feel my hips and knees and I am aware of every footfall and every creak of my joints, on guard for the pain to reenter my limbs. Instead, I loosen up and begin to feel like I could run or jog. I smile as I walk past different nurse’s stations.

I walk down the long corridor, keeping clear of the nurses and doctors—giving them friendly nods, and turn at the hall that leads out to the garage, walking all the way down to the last door, and then turn back. I repeat the whole route, about 400 meters a total of eight times, reaching the two-mile mark, and then keep going for another four laps for good measure. Three miles.

I’m strangely excited to tell Ralph about my success.

* * *

Dr. Hand is waiting when I arrive back at the room, but Ralph is gone.

“How’d you make out?” he asks.

“I got in about three miles.”

“Well, well, well! Looks like you’re ready to be discharged!”

“Really, Doc?”

“But no running and absolutely no mountains for about four months, you hear me?”

“What about running a marathon? Just a small road marathon. Nothing too crazy.”

“It’s a lot of pounding and you have a bad extrusion. I’d do the rehab, really get your core strong, lots of planks and core work—but no bending. Get your body strong first. It isn’t ready for more than a few miles. You won’t lose much in a few months—better than landing yourself back here.”

“Alright, alright. I’ll take it easy. What happened to Ralph?”

“He got his transfer papers. He’s off to Mt. Sinai already.”

“Jeez. I didn’t get to say goodbye.”

“Ralph’s been here about eight weeks. He starts out pretty annoying, doesn’t he? But he sure grows on you, huh.”

“I guess so. Hey. You two both served in the marines. What made you go from combat to medicine?”

“That’s an easy one, son. You see this leg?”

“I noticed that.”

“I’ve been suffering with this thing for more than ten years from back when I was in the service. Crippling, routing pain. My quest to heal myself gave me inspiration to get into medicine, and that’s what I’ve been doing ever since I got back.”

“Physician, heal thyself… that kind of thing?”

“You could say that.”

* * *

Benjie says, “It's de time fe move yuh from dis place.”

“Do you have my prescriptions?”

“See ya have all di tings yuh go need fi mek yuh good as new.”

“Alright, let me get down here in this wheelchair.”

“Awright, leggo on down to de elevator now.”

“Did you hear anything about Ralph’s surgery and how it’s going?”

“Right now, he deh inna surgery, dem deh tek weh di sick piece a him pancreas. Dem a cut out dat nasty lump a muck.”

“Do you think he’s going to be ok?”

“Doc Hand e deh doin’ de surgery himself. Mi neva hear 'bout nobody weh Doc Hand lose, e even if mi know seh maybe one or two slip through. There's somet'ing special 'bout Doc Hand, like every one a dem patients him wukkin' hard fi heal a give him a little piece a di puzzle weh ago finally help him heal himself.”

“I guess that’s the same for all of us.”

As I get up and walk over to the taxi, I wave back at Benjie and thank him for watching over me.

I wonder about Ralph, being released back into a world of walking shadows.